Happy Samhain

For you regular folks, today is Hallowe'en. That's the name Christians imposed on the original pagan holiday of Samhain. It's the Celtic New Year. For the folks who originally celebrated the holiday, it was a time to celebrate the harvest, and the earth could begin it's cycle of dormancy and renewal. The people would bid farewell to the recently deceased. They would light fires and leave food and offerings out of doors to entice the spirits out of their houses and onwards to whatever paradise they imagined. It's a short leap to see how it has mutated into kids dressing in ghoulish fashion, and collecting offerings at each doorway.

Happy New Year to all then. In that spirit, I've made a Samhain Resolution, just to get the jump on everybody else who thinks about renewal at our traditional new year. I gingerly extended my hand and shook with Sass on losing 10 pounds before Christmas this year. I figure that Christmas is always a huge pig out, and I'll have no chance if I gain another 5 or so pounds and then try to lose 15 or 20 in the new year. If I lose 10 beforehand, I can guiltlessly make a glutton of myself at the yuletide.

It seems to me that people around the world celebrate their new years at different times, so why not think about renewal a little more often than once every 365 days too. Nothing wrong with that. My brother PK celebrates the Chinese New Year. People are starting to look forward to his greeting cards because it's so odd for a white-bread Canadian boy to be sending them out. I like to reflect on the Celtic New Year, because I can sympathize with pagans. They aren't granted much in the way of legitimacy from the rest of society. I'm part Celtic, so why shouldn't I think about how my distant ancestors marked the passage of time.